


They're Coming Creeping from the Corner

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Universe, Creepy, Gen, Henry's having a bad time, Horror, I suppose this is an, Lights Out!, Psychological Horror, Stalking, and you just can’t help but wonder if something’s staring back at you?, at least I hope this is scary, chapter 4, your eyes are playing tricks on you my dear, y’know that feeling when you’re staring into darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 21:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14656685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: “Only thing that bothers me is that mechanical demon in the corner… I swear, when my back’s turned… that thing’s movin’.”A story in which creatures made of ink aren’t the only ones Henry has to worry about.





	They're Coming Creeping from the Corner

**Author's Note:**

> So I know I said that I had no idea when this one would be done, but some late night inspiration later, and here we are! I’m posting this literally right before I leave, so consider this my farewell gift for the immediate future. I’ll do my best to not completely disappear for the next two weeks, but we’ll have to see how it goes. 
> 
> title from Nightmare, by Set It Off

It was so quiet.

In the upper portions of the studio, Henry’d always had some sort of immediate background noise accompanying him, from the creak of the pipes to the machinery jutting out from the walls, to the various creatures hunting him down. But down here, in the abandoned Bendy-Land, there was nothing.

The only things he heard were the noises he himself made, save for a few, distant clanks and groans and the occasional buzz of a lightbulb. 

Henry found himself cringing with every loud noise he made, each seeming to echo more than they should. His footsteps alone were enough to keep his heartbeat racing. ‘Alice’ had warned him that ‘Bendy’ could hear things, but something told him that the ink demon didn’t haunt these levels like he did the ones above.

A twisted part of him almost wished ‘Bendy’ did. At least then, he wouldn’t be alone.

He was trying to find the switches to activate the Haunted House, yet with the way everything outside it was set up, it felt like he was already in one.

Opening the first door hadn’t been too hard, though the sound of the bottles being knocked over made him flinch. Stepping into the doorway had nearly given him a heart attack, the limp Bendy suits in the corner appearing at first glance to be horrifying creatures emerging from the wall.

“Jeez,” Henry said, bracing himself against the wall with one hand, the other pressed over his heart. “I’ll be jumping at shadows next.”

The location of the next lever took him into a room with much more sound in it, from a rushing waterfall of ink to the rumble of machinery. Despite the trio of toons he was forced to avoid without the help of a weapon, he was almost glad for being in there.

There was a tape on the desk in one of the rooms, and he pressed the play button before collapsing onto one of the stools. Listening absently to the unfamiliar speaker, Lacie Benton, he took stock of his aching body.

Cuts and bruises made up the majority of his visible injuries, though his right ankle was swelling uncomfortably. His head had been hurting since his fall into the music department, and if he didn’t have a concussion by now, he’d eat his own bow-tie. It hurt to breath and move certain ways, so it wouldn’t surprise him if something was seriously wrong with his ribs.

Heaving himself up as Lacie rambled, knowing that if he sat for too long he’d have trouble convincing himself to keep moving, Henry wandered around the small room, looking for a weapon or information, _anything_.

He ended up at the far end of the workbench, right as Lacie said, _“Only thing that bothers me is that mechanical demon in the corner.”_

Sure enough, he was staring down at a robot bearing Bendy’s likeness. Half of its face was missing, the painted plate sitting cracked and broken on the floor below it, displaying the exposed mechanics. Its left hand was completely gone, wires poking out where it seemed to have been ripped off. Splashes of ink covered the thing, some even dripping from its uncovered, empty eye socket like morbid tears. Judging from the oddly human proportions of the thing, Henry guessed it would be just as tall as him.

He gave it a little pat on the chest, sympathizing with its damaged state, and then froze as Lacie reached the end of her monologue, finishing with one of the most ominous sentences he’d ever heard, _“I swear, when my back’s turned… that thing’s movin’.”_

Oh, please no.

Henry swallowed heavily. Without taking his eyes off the bot, he carefully shuffled away from the workbench and back down the corridor that brought him here.

It didn’t move.

Breathing a sigh of relief as soon as he turned the corner, Henry hurried away. Emerging into the pit, he laughed a little as he dodged the Butcher gang’s attacks. Chances were he was just being ridiculous. Whoever Lacie was, she had probably spent more time than she should’ve alone, and he couldn’t imagine being down here for long without thinking he was seeing things.

Besides, machinery couldn’t do things on its own. Especially not when it was broken and rotting away in an abandoned studio for so long.

• • • • •

An hour later, Henry collapsed to the floor, exhausted and panting, to watch as the ruined amusement park ride finished shutting down. The broken axe fell from his numb fingers, and he knew that if his ribs hadn’t been damaged before, they sure were after being smacked around multiple times by the carts.

Not caring that the door behind him was opening to reveal the third lever, he watched the smoke curl up towards the ceiling and tried very, very hard not to think about the mechanical demon sitting just a few rooms away.

After what felt like a long time, Henry pushed himself up, gasping quietly in pain as his chest felt fit to burst with pain. He flipped the lever and trudged through the debris back to the main room.

That eerie silence again.

Every little clink and plop and thump had Henry’s heart racing, had him spinning in place, had him holding his breath, had him expecting to see the bot standing right behind him.

He eyed the doorway that lead to the room with the pit, where the animatronic was. If only he could close it or block it off, then maybe he wouldn’t be so jumpy.

And to think, he was only one lever away from exchanging _this_ place with the actual Haunted House. If the real deal was anything like the lead-up, he was bound to have a heart attack sooner rather than later.

For perhaps the hundredth time since he set foot back inside the studio, Henry deeply questioned his life choices.

Muttering reassurances to himself that the bot wasn’t going to suddenly jump off the workbench and come after him—and ignoring the hypocritical way he was tiptoeing to avoid detection by, say, anything that wandered into Bendy-Land—he headed towards the last location. The sooner he could put this place behind him and just move on, the better.

Barely a minute later, and the bot was the last thing on Henry’s mind. The Projectionist was somehow down here now, and there were even less walls to hide behind than before. It was a close one, but Henry managed to make it to the upper level of the train room without being detected.

“Finally,” he said, tugging the lever down. Glad to be done with it, he turned towards the stairs, and two things happened at once.

One of those things happened to be all the lights going out, plunging Henry into complete and total darkness. The other thing, the one that nearly pulled a terrified cry from his mouth, was less of something that happened and more like something he saw.

Because just turning the corner from the staircase was the mechanical Bendy, standing, moving, and—in the split second Henry had to look at it—seemingly fully operational.

And then everything was pitch black and all Henry could hear was the rushing of blood in his ears, his thunderous pulse, and his ragged breathing.

Until a low thump registered in his paralyzed brain, followed by another, and another, and another, and—footsteps. The thumps were _footsteps_.

Clapping a hand over his mouth in an effort to silence himself, Henry struggled to remember the exact layout of the balcony area. There was a table somewhere to his left, he was sure. Edging out into the open took every ounce of his nerves, but the bot was thankfully easy to keep track of with its audible tread.

Moving backwards, he realized his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, because now he could see that there was the tiniest bit of yellow light coming from the open ceiling in the middle of the room. A flash of silver, out of place in a building with so much black ink and sepia-toned walls, caught his attention.

The bot rounded the corner of the railing. There was absolutely nothing separating them now.

To Henry’s immense relief, it seemed to be heading towards the lever, not towards him. Without being able to hear or see him, hopefully it wouldn’t be able to find him.

It was a long, heart-wracking trip back to the stairs the long way around, feeling his way past obstacles as quietly as he could. There was another flicker of metal as the bot seemed to come to the conclusion that Henry had moved on, and after that, he was unable to determine where it was.

Whether it was moving quietly now, not moving at all, or he was just too far away to hear its footsteps, he didn’t know, but regardless, there was no longer the sound of thumps preceding it.

Halfway there, his body started playing tricks on him. It would feel like there was something looming at his back, or like his questing fingertips were brushing over metal instead of wood. A creak, too long and heavy to be a coincidence, just to his right. Something like a breath puffing against the nape of his neck, cooling the sweat and mostly-dried blood there.

It was so hard not to flinch at every little thing, to hold back the whimpers in his throat, to even just keep moving instead of curling up in defeat.

Forget everything else he’d faced so far—this was by far the most terrifying. His mind, just as battered as the rest of him, kept repeating _there’s something up here with you, there’s something up here with you._

_It’s getting closer, Henry. It could be right behind you, Henry. It could be reaching out to grab you, Henry._

For a moment, in the darkness, he thought he saw a humanoid shape turning towards him.

_How long has it been following you, Henry? Since Lacie’s workshop? Has it been watching you, lurking in shadows, waiting for you to turn your back for just a second too long?_

Floorboards creaked, and in the silence—that stupid, rotten, silence—it was impossible to tell which direction it came from.

_It knew you were in here. It knows you. It wants to kill you. Henry… there’s something up here with you._

His straining ears and hyperactive mind told him there was quiet mechanical whirring in front of him.

_Maybe it knows exactly where you are, and it’s just playing with you. Maybe it can see in the dark. Maybe it’s creeping closer, and closer, and closer…_

What he wouldn’t give to face the Projectionist again. At least he announced his presence with both adrenaline-inducing screeches and his bright light.

Right as Henry reached the stairs and was trying to figure out how to go down them without making a racket, the lights began to turn back on, dim at first but slowly growing stronger.

Before he had a chance to be grateful, Henry realized that his last delusion hasn’t been so delusional at all. The bot actually was standing a few meters in front of him, whirring quietly as its head tilted. Ink bled from it’s eye socket—why did it even have an eye socket, Henry found himself absurdly wondering—and after about two whole seconds of staring at each other, it stepped forward.

Henry practically flew down the stairs, ignoring the horrible pain in his chest and his ankle and the way the too-sudden movement made him momentarily lightheaded.

Not even bothering to try and figure out where the Projectionist was, he ran straight up the center aisle, sloshing through the ink. He didn’t think he could hear anything behind him, so maybe the bot was nice and slow or—

With a great crash and swell of ink, the mechanical Bendy landed before Henry, having jumped over the railing above him. It stood right at the end of the aisle, blocking the only way out of the train room.

 _I was right about it being as tall as me_ , Henry dimly thought, the rest of him frozen and tense. His body was in maximum fight-or-flight mode, though it was heavily leaning towards flight. Just, why wouldn’t the stupid thing move already, give him something to react to?

Turned out, neither would have the chance to make the first move, as bright projector light played across the Bendy bot’s more intact facial features, followed by an unholy shriek. When reaching his target, the Projectionist—Henry discovered—would full on tackle his victim and completely lift them off their feet in his furious rush.

The sound of the two colliding with the wall spurned Henry into motion, and without pause, he sprinted for all he was worth towards the stairs. Taking them two at a time left him aching and wheezing, but it was worth it to get out of there faster.

When flushed with adrenaline, time can lose all meaning—a few seconds feeling like a long, drawn-out minute—and thoughts approach light-speed, bouncing around in a brain soaked in panic.

At the top of the staircase, such a thing happened to Henry, and the world seemed to slow around him.

_Tick, tock. You’re running out of time, Henry._

A glance behind him showed that the bot was still in pursuit, and a million and one different words and choices and actions flashed through his mind.

_Tick, tock. It’s getting closer, Henry._

Run or hide. Trap or fight. Evade or engage. Retrace his steps out of Bendy-Land or proceed into the Haunted House.

 _Tick, tock_.

Decisions decisions, it was getting closer, how could he fight it, how could he run from it, what about Boris, was there somewhere to trap it, could it be stopped, would it kill him, was it alive, could it be reasoned with, why was it alive—

_Tick… tock…_

Henry pried open the door of the Little Miracle Station, somehow without it creaking in protest, and silently closed it behind him. In his condition, running wasn’t an option, not for long. His race up the stairs had already left him painfully winded.

Fighting, too, was out of the question. Injured and weaponless against a robot was a bad combination.

Back-tracking out of Bendy-Land was the opposite of what he wanted, but leading it into the Haunted House seemed like a terrible idea.

Hiding was about all he could really do at this point.

Situating himself sideways, Henry slid down to sit on the floor of the box, drawing his knees up to his chest in a way that made him feel like he was eight years old and hiding from the monsters under his bed.

Something kept the studio’s inhabitants from interacting with the Stations. If the ink demon himself couldn’t find Henry in here, he had to hope-believe-trust that the bot couldn’t either.

 _Thump_.

Time reasserted itself, and Henry pressed both his hands over his mouth to keep any stray sounds from slipping out.

_Thump, thump. Thump… thump._

It wasn’t leaving.

Henry squeezed his eyes shut, and so didn’t see the way something blocked the light coming in through the Station’s little window.

The studio creaked, and Henry’s heart raced.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s a pretty ambiguous ending but that’s all I have planned for this one! 
> 
> I saw the mechanical Bendy in the game and just _knew_ I had to have some fun with it. That last line of Lacie’s freaked me out about as much as Norman’s “They don’t even know when I’m watchin’. Even when I’m right behind ‘em.” While I assume that the bot won’t actually play a part in the game, it was still frightfully fun to pretend. 
> 
> Let me know what you thought! :)


End file.
